Spamhaus has listed bit.ly on the Domain Blocklist (DBL) for allowing spammers to abuse their redirector service.
Thus, if you use a bit.ly URL in your email, that message is much more likely to be labeled as "spam" by recipient filters. In fact, you should avoid using ANY URL shorteners in email, since these blocks come and go as the services get abused by spammers.
Here is a good article about using URL shorteners.
Open-rate tracking isn't foolproof, but it can nevertheless provide useful information for newsletter authors who are aware of the limitations. We have added an easy-to-use open-rate tracking feature to our CCtoMany newsletter service. See http://www.cctomany.com/Info/Metrics for more information.
Here's a great way to send a quick confidential note to someone, for example, if you want to share a password or credit card number safely.
Go to
www.burnnote.com in your web browser. Type the message, then press the Send button. You'll be given a unique URL to your message, which you can now email or IM or text to the recipient. When they click on that URL, they get to read the message you entered.
So now you're probably wondering what makes Burn Note any more secure than traditional email. Well, email is inherently insecure because it's transmitted in plain-text. Next, the unique burnnote.com URL will only work ONE TIME, after which the note gets deleted from their system. And if the recipient leaves their browser window open with the note visible, it'll self-destruct after 3 minutes. Re-visiting the unique URL won't bring it back. You can even employ options to prevent the recipient from doing a screen capture if you wish.
So long as you give a little thought beforehand, there's no risk of anyone at the Burn Note web site finding out your secret either. Add a password to your note, and it will be used to encrypt the message so that it is unreadable even on the BurnNote servers.
If you are a customer of our CCtoMany newsletter service and you prepare new messages using our online HTML editor, this new feature applies to you. You can now review previous messages which you have sent and use any one of them as the template (starting point) of a new newsletter.
See http://www.cctomany.com/Info/June2012 for more information.
If you have a DataBack newsletter list and you accept public subscriptions, did you know that there is a pre-built subscription page for your list? For example, if your list ID is "Trees", the DBMailer subscription page would be:
http://lists.databack.com/sub/Trees
For a CCtoMany list (named Coffeeshop), the format is:
http://www.cctomany.com/sub/Coffeeshop
Just replace "Trees" or "Coffeeshop" with your own list ID (first letter capitalized). This is only a simple default page for you to use. You can easily add signup forms to your existing web site.
Don’t have Dropbox yet? It’s an extremely useful (free) tool. Get it here:
http://db.tt/VTCT65na
Laura Atkins is a founding partner of the anti-spam consultancy and software firm Word to the Wise. We follow her blog; as usual, this post about spam filters is spot-on.
This decision doesn’t affect any of our customer lists, websites, or services. We simply want to announce that we have made the decision to move all DataBack Systems’ domains from Godaddy.com to another registrar. If you’re curious why, simply drop us an email to request the details.
I recently discovered www.jotform.com. If you need to create even one web form, you should use JotForm. It's that good. I'm not easily impressed, but this service is awesome! I am now using JotForm to quickly deploy some pretty complex form-driven apps. Check them out.
FYI, here’s an interesting article about the from address you use when sending a mailing. Bottom line: changing your from-address can have significant impact. Don’t do it without being aware of the consequences.
Check this page for information about new services, internet issues, recommended software, or just some occasional bloviating. Better yet, subscribe to this page by using the RSS link on this page or on our home page.
The current state-of-the-art for email authentication is DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)-signed mail. We have begun adding DKIM signatures for some customers upon request. Please contact us if you are interested in this for your messages.
I had used del.icio.us as my online bookmark service for years. But a new service has impressed me enough that I’ve switched. Keeping your bookmarks “in the cloud” has many advantages – check out http://www.diigo.com – they even have versions for your Android phone, iPhone, etc.
If you receive a message from databack.com saying “your POP and SMTP settings have changed”, that message is NOT from us and didn’t come from our servers. It’s a phishing email attempting to install malware on your computer. DO NOT open the attachment.
We still recommend plain-text newsletters. But if you are sending HTML newsletters, you will find a ton of useful advice for creating "rock solid" HTML email in this article:
http://24ways.org/2009/rock-solid-html-emails
Some quotes from the article (be sure to read the comments as well):
"Building an email is not like building for the web. "
"You need to test your designs regularly. Just because a template looks nice in Hotmail now, doesn’t mean it will next week."
"Just remember that pixel perfection in all email clients is a pipe dream."
Our CCtoMany service is focused on ease-of-use. Thus, the recommended method for posting messages to a CCtoMany list is to simply prepare and send an email to your list’s private posting address for immediate distribution.
Effective immediately however, CCtoMany accounts also include the ability to enter a message via a web-based editor, for scheduled delivery at some future date. Multiple messages can be scheduled, and any one can be saved as a template for future new mailings (to retain the same look for future messages).
